Got a date with a man. Goodbye, Freda. Glad you're going strong. Good
night, Mr. Bannister. Delighted to have made your acquaintance. You
must come round to the studio one of these days. Good night."
He moved softly away. Miss Reece watched him go with regret.
"He's a good little feller, Percy," she said. "And so he knows your
sister. Well, ain't that nice!"
Bailey did not reply. And to the feast of reason and flow of soul that
went on at the table during the rest of the meal he contributed so
little that Miss Reece, in conversation that night with her friend
alluded to him, not without justice, first as "that stiff," and, later,
as "a dead one."
* * * * *
If Percy Shanklyn could have seen Bailey in the small hours of that
night he would have been satisfied that his words had borne fruit. Like
a modern Prometheus, Bailey writhed, sleepless, on his bed till
daylight appeared. The discovery that Ruth was in the habit of paying
clandestine visits to artists' studios, where she met men like the
little bounder who had been thrust upon him at supper, rent his haughty
soul like a bomb.
He knew no artists, but he had read novels of Bohemian life in Paris,
and he had gathered a general impression that they were, as a class,
shock-headed, unwashed persons of no social standing whatever,
extremely short of money and much addicted to orgies. And his sister
had lowered herself by association with one of these.
He rose early. His appearance in the mirror shocked him. He looked
positively haggard.
Dressing with unwonted haste, he inquired for Ruth, and was told that a
telephone message had come from her late the previous evening to say
that she was spending the night at the apartment of Mrs. Lora Delane
Porter. The hated name increased Bailey's indignation. He held Mrs.
Porter responsible for the whole trouble. But for her pernicious
influence, Ruth would have been an ordinary sweet American girl,
running as, Bailey held, a girl should, in a decent groove.
It increased his troubles that his father was away from New York.
Bailey, who enjoyed the dignity of being temporary head of the firm of
Bannister & Son, had approved of his departure. But now he would have
given much to have him on the spot. He did not doubt his own ability to
handle this matter, but he felt that his father ought to know what was
going on.
His wrath against this upstart artist who secretly entertained his
sister in his studio grew with the minutes. It would be his privilege
very shortly to read that scrubby dauber a lesson in deportment which
he would remember.
In the interests of the family welfare he decided to stay away from the
office that day. The affairs of Bannister & Son would be safe for the
time being in the hands of the head clerk. Having telephoned to Wall
Street to announce his decision, he made a moody breakfast and then
proceeded, as was his custom of a morning, to the gymnasium for his
daily exercise.
The gymnasium was a recent addition to the Bannister home. It had been
established as the result of a heart-to-heart talk between old John
Bannister and his doctor. The doctor spoke earnestly of nervous
prostration and stated without preamble the exact number of months
which would elapse before Mr. Bannister living his present life, would
make first-hand acquaintance with it. He insisted on a regular routine
of exercise. The gymnasium came into being, and Mr. Steve Dingle,
physical instructor at the New York Athletic Club, took up a position
in the Bannister household which he was wont to describe to his
numerous friends as a soft snap.
Certainly his hours were not long. Thirty minutes with old Mr.
Bannister and thirty minutes with Mr. Bailey between eight and nine in
the morning and his duties were over for the day. But Steve was
conscientious and checked any disposition on the part of his two
clients to shirk work with a firmness which Lora Delane Porter might
have envied.
There were moments when he positively bullied old Mr. Bannister. It
would have amazed the clerks in his Wall Street office to see the
meekness with which the old man obeyed orders. But John Bannister was a
man who liked to get his money's worth, and he knew that Steve was
giving it to the last cent.
Steve at that time was twenty-eight years old. He had abandoned an
active connection with the ring, which had begun just after his
seventeenth birthday, twelve months before his entry into the Bannister
home, leaving behind him a record of which any boxer might have been
proud. He personally was exceedingly proud of it, and made no secret of
the fact.
He was a man in private life of astonishingly even temper. The only
thing that appeared to have the power to ruffle him to the slightest
extent was the contemplation of what he described as the bunch of
cheeses who pretended to fight nowadays. He would have considered it a
privilege, it seemed, to be allowed to encounter all the middle-weights
in the country in one ring in a single night without training. But it
appeared that he had promised his mother to quit, and he had quit.
Steve's mother was an old lady who in her day had been the best
washerwoman on Cherry Hill. She was, moreover, completely lacking in
all the qualities which go to make up the patroness of sport. Steve had
been injudicious enough to pay her a visit the day after his celebrated
unpleasantness with that rugged warrior, Pat O'Flaherty (ne
Smith), and, though he had knocked Pat out midway through the second
round, he bore away from the arena a black eye of such a startling
richness that old Mrs. Dingle had refused to be comforted until he had
promised never to enter the ring again. Which, as Steve said, had come
pretty hard, he being a man who would rather be a water-bucket in a
ring than a president outside it.
But he had given the promise, and kept it, leaving the field to the
above-mentioned bunch of cheeses. There were times when the temptation
to knock the head off Battling Dick this and Fighting Jack that became
almost agony, but he never yielded to it. All of which suggests that
Steve was a man of character, as indeed he was.
Bailey, entering the gymnasium, found Steve already there, punching
the bag with a force and precision which showed that the bunch of
cheeses ought to have been highly grateful to Mrs. Dingle for her
anti-pugilistic prejudices.
"Good morning, Dingle," said Bailey precisely.
Steve nodded. Bailey began to don his gymnasium costume. Steve gave the
ball a final punch and turned to him. He was a young man who gave the
impression of being, in a literal sense, perfectly square. This was due
to the breadth of his shoulders, which was quite out of proportion to
his height. His chest was extraordinarily deep, and his stomach and
waist small, so that to the observer seeing him for the first time in
boxing trunks, he seemed to begin as a big man and, half-way down,
change his mind and become a small one.
His arms, which were unusually long and thick, hung down nearly to his
knees and were decorated throughout with knobs and ridges of muscle
that popped up and down and in and out as he moved, in a manner both
fascinating and frightening. His face increased the illusion of
squareness, for he had thick, straight eyebrows, a straight mouth, and
a chin of almost the minimum degree of roundness. He inspected Bailey
with a pair of brilliant brown eyes which no detail of his appearance